Mayors from The Americas, Europe. Asia, Australia and Africa are competing for the annual World Mayor Award. More

City Mayors ranks the world’s largest as well as richest cities and urban areas. It also ranks the cities in individual countries, and provides a list of the capital cities of some 200 sovereign countries. More

City Mayors reports political events, analyses the issues and depicts the main players.More

City Mayors describes and explains the structures and workings of local government in Europe, The Americas, Asia, Australia and Africa. More

City Mayors profiles city leaders from around the world and questions them about their achievements, policies and aims. More
City Mayors deals with economic and investment issues affecting towns and cities. More

City Mayors reports on how business developments impact on cities and examines cooperation between cities and the private sector. More

City Mayors describes and explains financial issues affecting local government. More

City Mayors lists and features urban events, conferences and conventions aimed at urban decision makers and those with an interst in cities worldwide. More

City Mayors reports urban environmental developments and examines the challenges faced by cities worldwide. More

City Mayors reports on and discusses urban development issues in developed and developing countries. More

City Mayors reports on developments in urban society and behaviour and reviews relevant research. More

City Mayors deals with urban transport issues in developed and developing countries and features the world’s greatest metro systems. MoreCity Mayors examines education issues and policies affecting children and adults in urban areas. More

City Mayors investigates health issues affecting urban areas with an emphasis on health in cities in developing countries. More

City Mayors examines the importance of urban tourism to city economies. More

City Mayors examines the contributions history and culture make to urban society and environment. More

City Mayors describes the history, architecture and politics of the greatest city halls in the world. MoreCity Mayors invites readers to write short stories about people in cities around the world. MoreCity Mayors questions those who govern the world’s cities and talks to men and women who contribute to urban society and environment. More

City Mayors profiles national and international organisations representing cities as well as those dealing with urban issues. More

City Mayors reports on major national and international sporting events and their impact on cities. More

City Mayors lists cities and city organisations, profiles individual mayors and provides information on hundreds of urban events. More

Budget cuts compel Kawaguchi City to
set up new public management modelBy Junji Koike, Nomura Research Institute

28 January 2007: Kawaguchi is located on the southern edge of Saitama Prefecture, separated from Tokyo only by the Arakawa River, thus making it a convenient location for those who commute to Tokyo for work or school. With a population of some 500,000 people, Kawaguchi is a bustling city and one of the major economic and cultural centers of Saitama Prefecture.

Although the population is increasing, the budget restrictions have been harsher in recent years due to the decline of the regional economy. As a result, Kawaguchi city has to streamline the administrative process in order to reduce the size of its budget. As a means of achieving public administration reforms, the New Public Management (NPM) model has been introduced since 2002.

As part of the process of NPM, Kawaguchi city has tried to adopt ‘Project Review Meeting’ in its ‘Plan-Do-See’ managerial cycle. Project Review Meetings are meetings held by a director in each department. The director calls the managers of the department and has a meeting in which they discuss the priority of projects. Normally Project Review Meetings are held twice. At the first meeting, the attendants argue the environmental analysis which this department are concerned with. For example, the member of the department of commerce will discuss the regional economy, employment situation, and particular development projects as part of the environmental analysis.

Under the understanding of the environment, then they discuss the projects they themselves are dealing with. They discuss each project from the aspect of its necessity, effectiveness, efficiency and possibility of outsourcing. In this discussion, they use the materials that explain the details of each project including its key performance figures. This first meeting is going on until the attendants finish discussing all the projects they have.

In the next Project Review Meeting, the attendants decide the order of priority, that is, which project they should proceed with first, or allocate more budget and human resources to. Using a project list and budget restriction the department should follow, they decide the priority of the projects. Some projects will be allocated increased resources, while other will have to do with less. It does happen that the officers decide to put on ice some low priority projects.

The result of Project Review Meeting is usually realized without change. Because of this, each department can influence the policy-making based on local input. At the same time, the department of planning and budgeting has a budget for the city’s strategic projects. The projects through Project Review Meeting are based on departmental views, so it might not be effective to solve holistic problems the city faces. This is why the department of planning and budgeting has its own budget in order to implement cross-sector policies. Increase of reviewing projects makes Kawaguchi city plan to use Information Technology. In 2005, the city reviewed 139 projects. In 2006, however, the number of reviewing projects stood at 744, and this will increase further in 2007. At the Project Review Meeting, the attendants refer to the materials that contain information about the projects. The city is now trying to compile these materials into a database.

This database is called the Project Review System. Making use of the database, the attendants of the meeting can easily search for necessary information to discuss. For instance, an attendant can find projects its budget size is over 5,000.000 yen. The city is now planning to amend this system to use as a web-based database. Using the web-based database, officers can access to the database through their computers and find necessary information about a project. Each officer will be able to know how a project is progressing.

In future, Kawaguchi city may get residents involved in Project Review Meeting. Of course, the residents lack enough knowledge about projects. It would be difficult for the residents to evaluate a project. However, the residents will play a big role to cut the grants to certain organizations. The officers usually hesitate to reduce the budget for the grants to politically powerful organizations. The ordinary residents, however, don’t have a stake in such organizations, so they will be expected to cut the budget for such projects just following the public interest.

The Arakawa River separates Kawaguchi from Tokyo

On other pagesBrazilian cities pioneer democratic budgeting
To be known as a poor country with problems in areas such as politics and education has been no stumbling-block to Brazil’s pioneering a practice that, little by little, is spreading throughout the world. This is the Participatory Budget (PB). It is, in general terms, the shared administration between government and citizens where collective decisions are made on how the budget is to be formulated.The first city to employ this practice was Porto Alegre, south Brazil, in 1988, and was initiated by mayor Olívio Dutra, of the Worker’s Party (PT).

Since then, some 300 cities around the world employ the the Participatory Budget. Cities using this process of participation are to be found in various parts of Latin America, as well as in France, Spain, Portugal, Italy, England and Belgium.

This experience represents an ‘about turn’ in city administration. Citizens have the opportunity to participate more effectively, instead of just voting anonymously. Under the scheme, anyone interested can participate individually or through social organisations, such as neighbourhood associations. Delegates are elected to take to the assemblies or meetings the demands of the areas they represent. PB also works with themes, where issues concerning specific areas such as health, education, social welfare and housing are debated.

An important part of the process is the formation of the Participatory Budget Council whose members are elected each year. They represent the population and have close access to city hall, inspecting the execution of approved works and appraising benefits. More